All things considered, Ohio State’s rout of Rutgers last weekend did about as well as ABC could have hoped.
Last Saturday’s Ohio State/Rutgers college football game drew a 3.0 final rating and 5.3 million viewers on ABC last Saturday night, down 62% in ratings and 60% in viewership from Notre Dame/Florida State last year (7.9, 13.3M) and down 12% and 7%, respectively, from Florida State/Clemson in 2013 (3.4, 5.7M).
A big decline was to be expected give the quality of last year’s game, which pitted a pair of high-profile, top five championship contenders.
The Buckeyes’ blowout win scored the second-largest college football audience of the week, trailing only Tennessee/Alabama on CBS (7.0M). It had the third-highest rating, behind Tennessee/Alabama (4.3) and ABC’s regional window earlier in the day (3.1). Head-to-head, it easily topped Utah/USC on FOX (2.1, 3.3M) and Mississippi/Texas A&M on ESPN (1.7, 2.8M).
In other action, ABC’s aforementioned regional window had a 3.1 and 4.9 million — up 29% in ratings and 28% in viewership from last year (2.4, 3.8M) and down 9% in both measures from 2013 (3.4, 5.3M), both of which were also regionalized. Reverse mirror coverage on ESPN2 had 876,000, bringing the total up to 5.7 million.
Rounding out ABC’s tripleheader, Clemson’s historic rout of Miami had a 1.8 and 2.6 million. There were no comparable windows last year or in 2013.
(Wknd. numbers via Sports Business Daily)
